Poem of the Moment

Poetry - whatever strikes me. Favorite poets, those I feel are understudied and underappreciated; or just those I feel that everyone should read.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Oscar Wilde

Flamboyant, witty, and linguistically masterful, Oscar Wilde was a dramatic genius whose comedies are still noted as containing some of the most brilliant dialogue ever written for the stage. He was born into a prominent Anglo-Irish family in Dublin in 1854, and while at Oxford, became acquainted with the inimitable John Ruskin. His sole novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, was published in 1891; however, it was his four comedic plays that brought him lasting fame: Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895), and his most famous The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). At one point in 1895, three of his plays were running simultaneously in London. His fall from grace in late 1895 was decisive: while carrying on a clandestine love affair with another man, he was outed by the father, a nobleman. Wilde was arrested as a homosexual and served two years at hard labor, during which his wife sought a legal separation and his friends deserted him. Upon his release from prison, he migrated to France and finished "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" (named for the prison in which he served time). He died suddenly in 1900, at the age of forty-six.

"The Ballad of Reading Gaol" is about a man whom Wilde saw hanged while in Reading. The trooper, anonymous in the poem as he was in life, had slit his wife's throat with a razor. Wilde's final vision sees us all as anonymous sufferers, subject to the whims of our mistakes and the judgement of those who uncover them. In short, Wilde takes a man whose brutal crime made him inhuman, and shows his human side. Few could have done it as masterfully as did he; however, none could have used the English language to create such pathos for an absolutely anonymous individual, whose identity is constructed only as a crime. Below are selections from the Ballad. I hope you enjoy them.

He did not wear his scarlet coat,For blood and wine are red,And blood and wine were on his handsWhen the found him with the dead,The poor dead woman whom he loved,And murdered in her bed.

He walked amongst the Trial MenIn a suit of shabby grey;A cricket cap on his head,And his step seemed light and gay;But I never saw a man who lookedSo wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who lookedWith such a wistful eyeUpon that little tent of blueWhich prisoners call the sky,And at every drifting cloud that wentWith sails of silver by.

I walked, with other souls in pain,Within another ring,And was wondering if the man had doneA great or little thing,When a voice behind me whispered low,"That fellow's got to swing."

Dear Christ! the very prison wallsSuddenly seemed to reel,And the sky above my head becameLike a casque of scorching steel;And, though I was a soul in painMy pain I could not feel

I only knew what hunted thoughtQuickened his step, and whyHe looked upon the garish dayWith such a wistful eye;The man had killed the thing he loved,And so he had to die.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves,By each let this be heardSome do it with a bitter look,Some with a flattering word,The coward does it with a kiss,The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young,And some when they are old;Some strangle with the hands of Lust,Some with the hands of Gold:The kindest use a knife, becauseThe dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,Some sell, and others buy;Some do the deed with many tears,And some without a sigh:For each man kills the thing he loves,Yet each man does not die.

He does not die a death of shameOn a day of dark disgrace,Nor have a noose about his neck,Nor a cloth upon his face,Nor drop feet foremost through the floorInto an empty space

***

Six weeks the guardsman walked the yardIn a suit of shabby grey:His cricket cap was on his head,And his step seemed light and gay,But I never saw a man who lookedSo wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who lookedWith such a wistful eyeUpon that little tent of blueWhich prisoners call the sky,And at every wandering cloud that trailedIts ravelled fleeces by.

He did not wring his hands, as doThose witless men who dareTo try to rear the changeling HopeIn the cave of black Despair:He only looked upon the sun,And drank the morning air.

He did not wring his hands nor weep,Nor did he peek or pine,But he drank the air as though it heldSome healthful anodyneWith open mouth he drank the sunAs though it had been wine!

And I and all the souls in pain,Who tramped the other ring,Forgot if we ourselves had doneA great or little thing,And watched with gaze of dull amazeThe man who had to swing.

For strange it was to see him passWith a step so light and gay,And strange it was to see him lookSo wistfully at the day,And strange it was to think that heHad such a debt to pay.

***

So with curious eye and sick surmiseWe watched him day by day,And wondered if each one of usWould end the self-same way,For none can tell to what red HellHis sightless soul may stray.

At last the dead man walked no moreAmongst the Trial Men,And I knew that he was standing upIn the black dock's dreadful pen,And that never would I see his faceFor weal or woe again.

Like two doomed ships that pass in stormWe had crossed each other's way:But we made no sign, we said no word,We had no word to say;For we did not meet in the holy night,But in the shameful day.

A prison wall was round us both,Two outcast men we were:The world had thrust us from its heartAnd God from out His care:And the iron gin that waits for SinHad caught us in its snare.

***

There is no Chapel on the dayOn which they hang a man:The Chaplain's heart is far too sick,Or his face is far too wan,Or there is that written in his eyesWhich none should look upon.

So they kept us close till nigh on noon,And then they rang the bell,And the warders with their jingling keysOpened each listening cell,And down the iron stair we tramped,Each from his separate Hell.

Out into God's sweet air we went,But not in wonted way,For this man's face was white with fear,And this man's face was grey,And I never saw sad men who lookedSo wistfully at the day.

I never saw sad men who lookedWith such a wistful eyeUpon that little tent of blueWe prisoners called the sky,And at every happy cloud that passedIn such strange freedom by.

But there were those amongst us allWho walked with downcast head,And knew that, had each got his due,They should have died instead:He had but killed a thing that lived,Whilst they had killed the dead.

For he who sins a second dimeWakes a dead soul to pain,And draws it from its spotted shroud,And makes it bleed again,And makes it bleed great gouts of blood,And makes it bleed in vain!

Like ape or clown, in monstrous garbWith crooked arrows starredSilently we went round and roundThe slippery asphalt yard;Silently we went round and round,And no man spoke a word.

I've given you about 1/5 of the poem, some each of the beginning, middle, and end. I hope you enjoyed it, that it gave you food for thought, but most of all, that I inspired you to read the rest of the poem. Wilde's was a great voice, one that fell silent for the rest of his short life after completing this Ballad...

Archives

About Me

I grew up all over Appalachia, mostly Tennessee and West Virginia. I've been a voracious reader since I learned how, also an off and on pianist since I was five (currently off - moving a piano to NC was too expensive). I received my MA in American Literature and Theory in 2005, and I'm currently working on a Ph.D. in Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media at NC State.
I was married to my best friend from college in July, 2004. She gave birth to our beautiful daughter on May 28, 2006, at 2:27 a.m.